24 June 2017

It seems like the longest five days ever (click here) waiting to get on with racing for the America's Cup.

There has been a lot going on at both Emirates Team NZ and with Oracle Team USA.

ETNZ has been making further modifications to their fairings, both on their hulls and on their wing. Fairings are designed to reduce aerodynamic drag. This is a big deal on these yachts because they travel so quickly. Any reduction in drag is an increase in boat speed. This is all part of the continual improvement approach.

OTUSA have changed mail foil (dagger-board) tips to increase the area and lift they provide. Their intent here is to try and improve acceleration, upwind height and especially tacking. They were back out on the water after only two days (and nights) in the shed and have been doing a lot of tacking practice....

Predictwind.com (click here) - Bermuda

Currently, inside the race course the wind speed is 6 - 8 knots
Wind Direction that highly fluctuates between 170 to 250 degrees true
Pressure is fluctuating between 1017 and 1022 hPa

Bermuda is in the little talked about "Sargasso Sea."

The Sargasso Sea is east of the Gulf Stream and is teaming with life.

The Sargasso Sea (click here) is a vast patch of ocean named for a genus of free-floating seaweed called Sargassum. While there are many different types of algae found floating in the ocean all around world, the Sargasso Sea is unique in that it harbors species of sargassum that are 'holopelagi' - this means that the algae not only freely floats around the ocean, but it reproduces vegetatively on the high seas. Other seaweeds reproduce and begin life on the floor of the ocean....

There are all kinds of life specifically adapted to live in and among the Sargassum. This unique sea is found nowhere else in the world. The word "sea" usually means it is a body of water on the edges of oceans with discernible land borders. The Sargasso Sea is different. It is defined by the Sargassum and it's floating display of life. If Sargassum were considered a land mass the oceans would surround an island. But, it is unique and incredible and surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean waters within reach of the Gulf Stream, so in that content can be considers a form of floating island.

Sargassum: A Complex 'Island' Community at Sea (click here)

Tara L. Casazza
Steve W. Ross, PhD

North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve

The surface layer of the ocean off North Carolina is dynamic, constantly in motion due to the waves and northward advancement of the Gulf Stream. As part of an ongoing study of the whole water column, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the North Carolina Estuarine Research Reserve, in collaboration with NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration, are sampling North Carolina Shelf surface waters to obtain a complete picture of the community structure of Sargassum and open-water habitats. Sargassum is a genus of large brown seaweed (a type of algae) that floats in island-like masses, and is common in waters off the U.S. South Atlantic coast....

                  

CYA by Governor Snyder. He should be next.

Drink that Governor.

Snyder's Emergency Manager program was ended by the people of Michigan in a referendum vote and he ignored them.

This is not a man that should be forgiven, he is guilty as sin and everyone knows it. The Flint River could never support a city's demand for water. It is not physically possible for the Flint River to support the city of Flint, yet, without any consultation from any agency in the state or federal government, Snyder pulled the plug on death and brain damage.

The man is one of the most cruel governors Michigan has ever seen and the country for that matter.

Where does the carnage of Americans stop? Never? 

It has to stop with this Governor! Justice demands this Governor "Does not walk!"

June 17, 2017

By David Eggert

An apologetic Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (click here) was largely silent last year when criminal charges were brought against state officials over Flint's man-made drinking water crisis, except to say some "bureaucrats" had failed residents and that he was focused on the city's recovery.

Now, with two of his own cabinet members facing unprecedented manslaughter or other charges related to a deadly Legionnaires' disease outbreak that some experts have linked to the municipal water, a more defiant Snyder is keeping them on the job and publicly and privately defending their names despite calls for their removal. He referred to Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon as a "strong leader." He said Lyon and Chief Medical Executive Eden Wells have his "full faith and confidence" and have been instrumental in Flint's rehabilitation.

They are the highest-ranking officials to be charged in Attorney General Bill Schuette's investigation of the city's lead contamination. And unlike the other 10 state officials who were previously charged — five environmental regulators, three health experts and two former emergency managers whom Snyder appointed to address the city's budget deficits — they are closer to his immediate orbit and report directly to him....

It is impossible to have a space program of any kind of the people of the country continue to elect those that destroy the USA brain trust.

The past two Republican administrations has a constituency that demands removal of science from any curriculum and demands at the same time the teaching of the Christian Bible, probably the King James edition.

They don't recognize the K-T Extinction and demand history reflect a timeline of 8000 years showing no such extinction occurred by meteorite. Now either we live up to the politics that repeatedly demands defunding of our public school education and refunding of charter schools that have no interest in reality or there simply isn't an interest in science by the USA.

22 June 2017

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., (click here) believes the Air Force is getting in its own way when it comes to advancing space operations.

During the House Armed Services Committee markup hearing of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday, Rogers lamented that the service doesn't expect to stand up a U.S. Space Corps to better prepare against space threats from Russia and China.

"When I see arguments that we are actually going to set back efforts to respond to adversaries and space threats -- well, I'm outraged," he said....

For those of us how KNOW there were dinosaurs and five past extinctions and are now watching the six extinction, NASA is going to have to come up with a "Meteor Killer" and preferably not rely on myth or cross fingers to achieve it.

The science needs to be talking truth to power and in any depositions or testimony or otherwise the IDEOLOGY of anti-science and anti-history and anti-public education has to be included in the dialogue. These falsehoods exist as a political dynamic that is based in ignorance and stupidity.

I am tired of Late Night Comics being the only ones standing up for science, technology and public education in the USA. 

It was 2003 and "W" had just invaded Iraq. The New Source Review was taking testimony that year and I provided a 21 page testimony and a 5 minute live testimony on Carbon Dioxide. That testimony helped Barbara Boxer introduce the first CO2 legislative bills in the country's history. For as important as that was and I wanted as many documents and statements to support my testimony, I took the last 60 seconds of to state, "I and my colleagues strong object to the use of dolphins for military use." I did that to register a protest against a populous viewpoint that invited the idea that Flipper was a soldier. Bottlenose dolphins were and continue to be endangered. For the life of me I can't imagine why, can you?

THAT IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. GET OBJECTS TO THE DEMORALIZING OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION ON THE RECORD! 

No more excuses!

What were they thinking? Were they thinking?

The company that sold the panels without conscience about who would be exposed to danger and death should be prosecuted. This is an outrage with global implications.

This is the problem in too many instances the global community faces. Each country, each construction project is another opportunity to exploit innocent people by Plutocrats.

June 23, 2017

By Lucy Pasha-Robinson

Tens of thousands of people (click here) could be living in potentially lethal tower blocks as it emerged at least 11 council-owned high rises are fitted with similar combustible cladding to that used on Grenfell Tower.

Tests revealed blocks in eight areas across the UK were fitted with flammable panels after a "small number" of samples were analysed, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said.

A further nine blocks in Salford, that were recently refurbished, have similar cladding, a city council spokesperson confirmed, but have yet to be checked by DCLG....

It is no different than countries such as China, India and Bangladesh exploited for cheap labor only to face tragedy among it's people in the face of corporate profits. It is unconscionable. But, it occurs anyway. Human life is not valued by the profiteers of the world.

Those that play the stock markets want to turn quick profits and move on in many instances and that is the profound problem facing governments looking for opportunity for their people.

The opportunity for employment and economic growth requires a focus of building a middle class in every country on Earth. It requires conscience for protecting Earth from those that exploit resources and pollute, including greenhouse gases, with abandon. None of these businesses are naive. They know exactly the harm they carry in their products and processes.

A biotic Earth is necessary for human life and I reject the ideas that Earth will someday be hit by a meteor again and all will be lost so space exploration is the only answer. That is completely stupid thinking. Space travel and space colonization is not perfected and those ideologues are simply painting Disneyland dreams for the imagination while having no profound facts or reality. The human race does not know what it faces with space colonization and we need Earth to be our salvation.

Clean water, clean air, normal weather patterns, plentiful crops and a vision for our children of an Earth full of life and promise. 

Enough. We are witnessing some of the most reckless policies ever written in the USA. These are fools pressing forward to enrich themselves while abandoning the future generations of the countries they call home. They are no more Americans than the US dollar bill they love.

The tragedy in Dubai was of a building under construction. The reality of what could have happened if the Dubai tower were completed has now played out in London. This is a global tragedy and should bring countries together to share standards and adverse companies. It is time we united under common goals to uphold the dignity of human life and the joy each of us experience when life has quality and longevity.

Great Britain needs to consider offering temporary housing to occupants of buildings that could be facing a similar fate. The facts have to be collected and actions taken to protect life.        

TANF needs to be replaced with a program that benefits struggling families to end the loss of their children to hideous "Adoption Subsidies."

TANF is a completely incompetent program that produces the working poor and not a stronger and better middle class.

There is nothing left to be said. The program has to build better families WHEN there is opportunity for them, otherwise, it needs to supplement the impoverished so they have a higher standard of living to support their children rather than destroy their families.

TANF is a work of POLITICAL RHETORIC AND PROPAGANDA. It is a direct result of hatred and ridicule of minorities. It is a fantasy and not a reality. The reality is that children are removed from impoverished homes to feelings of complete demoralized belonging. That TRAUMA caused by breaking up families lives with those children FOREVER.

TANF and Adoption Subsidies is a "Cradle to Grave Criminal Training Ground."

June 19, 2017
By Celisa Calacal

...Conducted by the Urban Institute, (click here) a think tank focusing on economic and social policy, the study looks at Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a welfare program that provides cash assistance to poor families with children. Despite TANF’s goal to combat poverty since its creation in 1996, the number of families benefiting from the program has been declining. For instance, in 2014 only 23 families received TANF assistance for every 100 families living in poverty in the U.S. And in 2016, only 1 percent of the total population received assistance from TANF within an average month.

One of the most striking findings of the Urban Institute study showed that the impacts of a state’s TANF program are connected to its race demographics. In looking at the ratio of families living in poverty to those receiving TANF benefits, researchers found that the majority of African-American families live in states that provide TANF cash assistance only to 19 out of 100 families living in poverty. This means that a majority of African Americans, 56 percent, live in states ranking in the bottom half of the TANF-to-poverty ratio....               

There is so much that could have happened to prevent the bullet from reaching the target. Congratulations. That is amazing shooting.

June 22, 2017

A sniper in the Canadian special forces shot (click here) and killed an Islamic State (IS) fighter from a distance of 2.1 miles (3,540m) in Iraq last month.

Military sources told Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper that the gunman is a member of Joint Task Force 2, and made the shot from a high-rise building.

It took the bullet almost 10 seconds to hit its target, it reports.

The Canadian Special Operations Command confirmed to the BBC the sniper "hit a target" from that distance.

The shot, which sources tell the paper was filmed, is thought to be a record for the longest confirmed kill....

May 15, 2015 Interview below. They pay a price for our freedom. They need to know their work is necessary and not based in hideously stupid leaders with alternative agendas. They need to know the citizens of their country are intact and treated fairly by their government for the price their sons pay.

They are not the property of Plutocarts.
              

This is a no brainer. Subpoena all the Trump tapes and ask Russia for any they are in possession of.

Trump is pleading with Congress to relieve sanctions against Russia, so make it a condition upon release of all surveilance tapes of the White House AND all the materials Russia has collected since the beginning of the election season of the 2016 elections.

June 23, 2017
By Mark Landler

..."With all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, (click here) intercepts, unmasking, and illegal leaking of information," Mr. Trump said in a pair of tweets shortly before 1pm, "I have no idea …. whether there are 'tapes' of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, such recordings."...

We know from reports Trump is recording conversations in the White House. Turn over the tapes and the committees can decide if there was any Comey tapes of interest. There are many Comey visits, request them all.

We know Russia has taken data from the USA, especially voter rolls and Democratic headquarters. Russia has to turn over all the information they took and then the USA can think about releasing sanctions that will not cause injury to Ukraine. Just that simple. Ukraine is safe, Russia reveals it's records and sanctions relieved that are beneficial to Russia and the USA. Tillerson will be a happy man since he is now desperately trying to decide what course of action is needed to save ExxonMobile after they sold off the Iraqi oil fields.

There is plenty of precedent regarding the "The Trump Tapes" and parallel precedents with Iran's agreement regarding a nuclear program. 

As if Flint needed anymore trauma.

June 21, 2017
By Tim Wiley

This morning, (click here) law enforcement officers from a number of organizations, including the FBI’s office in Flint, Michigan, responded to Flint’s Bishop International Airport after receiving the report of a stabbing of an airport police officer who is presently considered to be in stable condition.

The suspect was taken into custody at the airport and is currently being questioned by law enforcement officers.

The FBI, with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners, is jointly investigating this incident to determine the nature and motive for the attack. We are aware of reports that the attacker made statements immediately prior to or while attacking the officer, but it is too early to determine the nature of these alleged statements or whether or not this was an act of terrorism.

Based on the information that we have at this time, we believe this to be an isolated incident. We currently have no specific, credible information that there is a threat to the Flint community.

If you have any information about this incident, please call the FBI’s Detroit Field Office at (313) 965-2323 or submit information at tips.fbi.gov.

22 June 2017

Lieutenant Jeff Neville has worked for more than 20 years as a law enforcement office

The suspect is Amor Ftouhi, 50,...(click here)

Lieutenant Jeff Neville is in a stable condition in hospital after Wednesday morning's attack at Bishop International Airport in Flint.

Lt Neville helped take the suspect,... into custody at the scene....

Tunisia? Wasn't Tunisia the first to carry out a revolution leading into the Arab Spring?

It seems to me increasingly second generation immigrant Americans and now a Canadian are identifying with the suffering of the impoverished in the USA. I hope this is more about an air flight as Flint, Michigan itself.

The Orlando killer was sympathetic with minorities in the club. They were allowed to leave the building while he assassinated others. It is a 'thing.' People are feeling it and acting on it.

June 22, 2017

Flint, Mich. -- A Canadian man from Tunisia (click here) accused of shouting "Allahu akbar" before stabbing a Michigan airport police officer remains in custody after appearing in federal court.

The attack Wednesday at Bishop International Airport in Flint, Michigan, is being investigated as an act of terrorism, but authorities have no indication at this time that the suspect was involved in a "wider plot," said FBI Special Agent in Charge David Gelios.

"At this time we view him as a lone-wolf attacker," Gelios said. "We have no information to suggest any training."...

Ftouhi is charged with committing violence at an airport....

The Golden Showers Republicans strike again. McConnell, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

McConnell loves his cronies more than the people that elected him. It was under a Democratic governor the people of Kentucky FINALLY was able to afford health care and received vital diagnosis.

June 22, 2017
By Robert Pear and Thomas Kaplan

...unveiling (click here) a bill to cut Medicaid deeply and end the health law’s mandate that most Americans have health insurance.

The 142-page bill would create a new system of federal tax credits to help people buy health insurance, while offering states the ability to drop many of the benefits required by the Affordable Care Act, like maternity care, emergency services and mental health treatment.

The Senate bill — once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health bill passed by the House last month — instead maintains its structure, with modest adjustments. The Senate version is, in some respects, more moderate than the House bill, offering more financial assistance to some lower-income people to help them defray the rapidly rising cost of private health insurance....

The people of Kentucky need to rethink their US Senator in McConnell. He deliberately has dismantled the people's ability to be diagnosed of disease such as Black Lung and cancer. The two diseases resulting from working in the mines. There needs to be an investigation into the oppression of health care in relation to hindered diagnosis due to poor to no health care. The investigation can begin in Kentucky. When it is determined the number of people that have received no to few diagnosis of deadly disease then investigate the lack of treatment they have received. The day of dying Americans has to be over and not simply bartered with for campaign funding.

If an American cannot be diagnosed with disease they cannot receive treatment. Maintaining people in poverty without sufficient healthcare and FREE PREVENTIVE EXAMS annually will remove many treatable diseases from the bookkeeping of health care insurance companies. It has been a strategy of the past the requires investigation and subpoenas if not indictments.

Medicaid (click here) provides health coverage to millions of Americans, including eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities. Medicaid is administered by states, according to federal requirements.  The program is funded jointly by states and the federal government.

September 29, 2014
By Christopher Ingraham

The United States has a higher infant mortality rate than any of the other 27 wealthy countries, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control. A baby born in the U.S. is nearly three times as likely to die during her first year of life as one born in Finland or Japan. That same American baby is about twice as likely to die in her first year as a Spanish or Korean one.

Despite healthcare spending levels that are significantly higher than any other country in the world, a baby born in the U.S. is less likely to see his first birthday than one born in Hungary, Poland or Slovakia. Or in Belarus. Or in Cuba, for that matter.

The U.S. rate of 6.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births masks considerable state-level variation. If Alabama were a country, its rate of 8.7 infant deaths per 1,000 would place it slightly behind Lebanon in the world rankings. Mississippi, with its 9.6 deaths, would be somewhere between Botswana and Bahrain....

After THREE years of the Affordable Care Act those numbers were reduced.

180       United States of America (click here)    5.59       2017 (est.)

That was just three years of maternal - child care. ONLY THREE YEARS. Where are we headed now?

In 2015, the USA had a maternal death rate of 25.1 per 100,000 live births. That maternal death rate is THE HIGHEST among developed countries. (click here)

May 12, 2017
By Nina Martin

...American women (click here) are more than three times as likely as Canadian women to die in the maternal period (defined by the Centers for Disease Control as the start of pregnancy to one year after delivery or termination), six times as likely to die as Scandinavians. In every other wealthy country, and many less affluent ones, maternal mortality rates have been falling; in Great Britain, the journal Lancet recently noted, the rate has declined so dramatically that "a man is more likely to die while his partner is pregnant than she is." But in the U.S., maternal deaths increased from 2000 to 2014. In a recent analysis by the CDC Foundation, nearly 60 percent of such deaths are preventable....

We already know the lack of sufficient health care is directly related to socio-economic conditions. If the Republicans are practicing their own variety of ethnic cleansing, it is working.

October 25, 2016
By Karen Blum

Maternal mortality rates in the United States (click here) have increased significantly in nearly every state except California since 2000, and women of color have a significantly higher risk than white women, experts said during an American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists (ACOG) news briefing. Black women fared the worst, with maternal mortality rates more than two-fold higher than those for white women....

...recently in The Lancet to highlight maternal health in the United States, said Barbara Levy, MD, vice president of health policy for ACOG and coauthor of one of the Lancet articles.... 

...The rates in 48 states and Washington, DC, increased 27% from 2000 to 2014, from 18.8 to 23.8 per 100,000 live births, said Marian MacDorman, PhD, research professor at the Maryland Population Research Center in College Park, Maryland, citing work recently published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The researchers analyzed maternal mortality rates for Texas and California separately. Texas rates increased slowly from 17.4 to 18.6 per 100,000 live births from 2000 to 2010, then rapidly doubled to 38.6 per 100,000 live births in 2012. Although the rate has since declined a bit to 33.8 per 100,000 live births in 2014, it is still "much higher" than in any other state, Dr MacDorman said. From 2010 to 2012, the state experienced large cuts in women's health programs and clinic closings throughout the state, she said, although her research did not study potential associations.

California was the exception, with maternal mortality rates that decreased from 21.5 per 100,000 live births in 2003 to 15.1 per 100,000 in 2014....

Those in poverty are dependent on emergency rooms. It is a fact and considering the Medicaid Extension is removed from the support of the impoverished, their health will be in more danger of morbidity and mortality.

Mental health care has never been more critical in the USA considering the free and easy access to guns and weapons. The veterans in need of treatment, the elderly with onsets of Alzheimer's Dementia, drug and alcohol rehab and the prison population are all recipients of needed mental health dollars and not that is going to disappear AGAIN. 

The Republicans alleviated their own CRONY ACHES AND PAINS by removing the tax structure of the Affordable Care Act and cutting deeply into support programs for the people most in need of quality health care. The bankruptcies will be back, the housing foreclosures will be back and once again any gains the working poor made will be reduced to rubble AGAIN.

The Republicans have not changed, they are exercising the return to hideous policies that don't cover squat and only nearly on a good day get an American into the emergency room.

The Republicans and their president lied AGAIN. They have victimized the people less able to carry the burden and rewarded Wall Street with tax relief and give aways. Same 'ole, same 'ole; but; today with White Supremacists in the White House pandered to by a Republican majority in the US House and Senate it is more clear than ever the true agenda of this party.

Quality anything is not in a Republican dictionary; only quantity of dollars in basic mathematics is their only learning.

Donald Trump promised to end all "Free Trade Agreements" which we know was designed to sequester wealth.

There are currently at least three Goldman Sachs brokers within the structure of the Trump White House. Does anyone believe their plans for changes to laws within the Executive Branch are benign and beneficial to Americans?

Congress has to authorize trade after the President has negotiated trade with other countries. The thing is this: How much of the free trade agreements can be written into the infrastructure of the Executive Branch without the approval of Congress and unknown to the American people?

No former Goldman Sachs broker took the job with the White House to benefit the American people. That is a fact. So, why did they?

When left in the hands of morons a democracy can slowly die. The USA is definitely on that path.

It is time to call for formal recognition of the dangers of the Plutocracy that is plaguing the planet, quite frankly. The isolated wealth sequestered to a few is endangering most of the people of Earth. It is time for the United Nations to address the threat of sequestered wealth and it's perils to so many.

The Plutocrats can hide in rat holes and wait for the air to clear while a global war for power will destroy the biotic troposphere. Enough is enough.

The threat has to be identified, located and dialogues must take place. It is time to call the most dangerous threats to Earth's people what they are. The people of this planet cannot go on like this forever.

Future generations will fear, rather than fend for, the global environment.

20 June 2017

...“I can assure you, (click here) you’re going to be the first EPA administrator that’s come before this committee in eight years that actually gets more money than they asked for,” said Oklahoma congressman Tom Cole, a member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations who, as a Republican, is nominally on the same side as Pruitt. In a gruelling session, Pruitt was left in no doubt of what the committee members thought of proposals from Donald Trump’s administration to slash both the spending and the remit of the EPA.

“I’ll get straight to it. The fiscal year 2018 budget request for EPA is a disaster,” said Nita Lowey, a Democratic representative for New York who sits on the committee. The intended cuts of US$2.4 billion to the agency budget, she said, would “surely impact EPA’s ability to fulfil its critical mission of protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink”....

...A death zone is creeping over the surface of Earth, gaining a little more ground each year. As an analysis published this week in Nature Climate Change shows, since 1980, these temporary hells on Earth have opened up hundreds of times to take life 

(C. Mora et al.Nature Clim. Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3322; 2017). (click here)

At present, roughly one-third of the world’s population lives for about three weeks a year under such conditions. If greenhouse-gas emissions continue to rise unchecked, that figure could climb, exposing almost three-quarters of the population by the end of the century....

...Cities including London, New York, Tokyo and Sydney have all seen citizens die from the effects of excessive heat. By 2100, people in the tropics could be living in these death zones for entire summers....       

The longest day of the year greets North America with it's first named storm in the Gulf of Mexico; Tropical Storm Cindy.

21 June 2017
1830.18z
GOES East Water Vapor Satellite (click here for 12 hour loop - thank you)

June 21, 2017
By Sean Breslin

Authorities (click here) told local media that a 10-year-old boy was killed by flying debris Wednesday morning in Fort Morgan, Alabama, the first death attributed to Tropical Storm Cindy.

The child died of injuries suffered when an object was blown onto him by the tropical storm's strong winds, according to WKRG.com. The Coast Guard responded to the scene, but few other details were immediately available....

NATO should have offered an escort to wherever the Minister was going. Buzzing is so gauche.

21 June 2017

A NATO military plane (click here) on Wednesday approached the plane of Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu above the Baltic Sea, Russian news agencies reported, the third such encounter in three days....

The royals offer such valuable support to the UK. It isn't simply symbolic, their words carry brevity inside and outside the country. 

21 June 2017

The Prince of Wales (click here) has delivered a personal message of solidarity from the Queen as he visited faith leaders and community members including a victim of the suspected terror attack in Finsbury Park.

One man died and nine people were taken to hospital when a van driver targeted an area busy with worshippers attending Ramadan night prayers at a nearby mosque in the early hours of Monday....

The longest day of the year in Great Britain brings sweltering temperatures.

A child plays in a fountain at Bradford.

News today (19 June 2017) (click here) from the Met Office that the hot weather will now continue until Thursday, has prompted PHE to repeat its advice on how to beat the heat.

For the majority of people it is about common sense - staying cool, drinking plenty of water to maintain hydration, and avoiding sunburn. However, some groups can be particularly vulnerable and at much greater risk of harm, especially those with underlying heart and lung conditions, older people, babies and young children.

Looking out for people in these groups is important while most of England swelters under high temperatures.

Temperatures today were expected to top 30^oC in many places – which is above the point at which hot weather can impact the public’s health....

Russia believes the USA is as dangerous as Pakistan.

Listening to former DHS Secretary Johnson, it reminds me of a country concerned about the nuclear power of the USA and it's handlers.

I am not defending Russia, but, I believe Putin is worried about the stability and leadership of the USA since "W."

The question the USA should be asking is, "What does the USA look like to the rest of the world?"

I recognize Russia has breached the USA sovereignty as it relates to cyber space and it's relationship with politics and voters. That is a real threat. But, one has to wonder why Vladimir Putin would be involved directly.

Russia invaded the cyber space of the USA to expose the Democratic Party politics to control the outcome of the 2016 elections. Putin is very used to leading other leaders. He was building or perhaps has built that relationship with Trump. It could be fiscal, but, it's more than that. 

Clinton would not be easy to lead. A novice at the top of a government requires leadership and in this case Russia. One has to ask what possessed Putin to STUDY the voter base of the USA. 

Trump fits the need for Putin without a doubt in my mind. But, copying the voter bases is data mining. Why? Russia wants to influence all the USA elections from here forward? If so, why? It obviously has occurred since the fall of Iraq and the subsequent instability in the Middle East.

The global community is always concerned about whom has control of the nukes in Pakistan because of the gross instability in government (assassinations and treason trials) and the unpredictable ISI. Has the USA since "W" become another Pakistan? If we are calling the USA a Banana Republic, what consequence does the world face due to that fact?

I have to return to the White Supremacist movement in the USA. It has been successful. It has been very successful in elections. What happens to other peoples and other countries when a real madman takes the controls in the White House? 

The Russian prowess of cyber space is one of the reasons the F-35 is so very impractical. It is one of the reasons computers in government in sensitive areas is so completely ridiculous.

The issues are greater than Russia. We have witnessed the release of information from Republican organizations of member lists. It is to provide the country with information that will build and favor the GOP. In other words, if a job has candidates of equal stature, a GOP member should be chosen over anyone else. Why risk having anyone but a religious conservative in the company? It is a problem and now the morons of the GOP have an ally from outside the USA, namely Putin.

The GOP is corrupt. It is corrupt to the core. What political organization turns it's back on it's own children and plows full speed ahead with oil gluts in the face of a climate crisis? And they are very worried their "Old World" is coming to a close and they can't stop it. The ambitions of the GOP are toxic and any thinking, feeling American knows it.

I have an image in my mind I can't shake lately so let me share it with you. This is serious and not a joke, "Golden Showers, Trump." Translated into the president's place in the GOP it is "The Golden Showers GOP." Excuse the vulgarity, but, basically doesn't the GOP say "piss on it." "Piss on everything, EXCEPT, our cronies." 

It doesn't take a genius to throw the baby out with the bath water and isn't that what Wall Street wants?

Trump has captured the imagination of Americans to believe their country can be formed and shaped into their expectations without consequence. Americans are dummied down enough to believe they don't need government, except, for a mighty military. Well, their mighty military is being disarmed in the Pacific Ocean by freighter ships. There is a reason an aircraft carrier has an escort of very powerful ships, because, without them it is vulnerable should it's jets not be able to intercept and destroy incoming enemy jets.

The USA's reputation is extremely tarnished since the invasion into Iraq. Democracy in Egypt turned into a nightmare that brought about vulnerabilities to leadership that wished to do harm to citizens to achieve it's ideological goals. What if that happened in the USA? What if a leader thought it is time to do away with all the people his ideologies opposed and finally find Valhalla on Earth. A world shaped by ideology does manifest into the monster it is suppose to be.

I believe we are at that juncture. There is authority in the USA giving themselves permission to ravage our land, turn their backs on American health, reduce Medicare to a voucher and USE the USA government infrastructure for THEIR ideological purpose and let's not even start on my view of our imperiled education system.

I am dead serious. We are at a very dangerous place in history of the USA and Putin is pulling the puppet strings in the White House. The question we should be asking is, why and what purpose does it ultimately serve? No NATO? A return of the USSR?

Basically, we can't trust the people in power in the government in Washington, DC and it's isn't because of corruption feeding Wall Street; it is because of stupidity in leadership that creates vulnerability that is dismantling our democracy. 

I want every American to realize, the GOP has an ally outside the USA and it is Russia. That is a fact. Now, what are we all going to do about it?

Reality check!

June 5, 2017

By Buster Coen

After a weak Memorial Day frame, (click here) the box office was invigorated this past weekend by a big debut from Warner Bros.' "Wonder Woman."

Opening to $100.5 million, the DC film had one of the top openings of all time for a superhero origin movie, and the biggest opening ever for a film directed by a woman....

Not a member of the Screen Actor's Guild?

June 20, 2017

By Boede Carmody

Wonder Woman (click here) may have been pivotal in ending World War I, but there's still one fight she's yet to win: the gender pay gap. 

Everyone's favourite sword-wielding Amazonian, Gal Gadot, earned just $400,000 for her role in DC's latest superhero blockbuster....

This was a delightful film for even me. Wonder Woman is viewed growing into her role, not just as a child to adult, but, as a superhero.

Her inner self grows to realize the power within her over the entire film. It is delightful and harnesses the idea strength grows in self-awareness. She achieves her final strength as her favorite human dies (a hero himself) and she is confronted by a half-sibling, Ares, Ares is the God of War in Greek mythology.

Wonder Woman is younger, protected and less aware of the world. Ares uses that to his advantage. In the final scenes of her struggle, she digs deep and finds even greater power given her by her heritage. 

I won't give the ending away, but, it is a fun ride. 

This is a female directed film and I have to wonder what her salary was. I am rather disappointed Gal Gadot can buy a house, but, not a Delorian to take her Back to the Future. Because that is what is needed for Ms. Gadot and her director. They need a trip back to the future with a modern day respect for the talent in this fim. Ms. Gadot needs a guaranteed portion of the movie's revenue as does the director. 

Warner Brothers should be the proud father of the largest grossing film by a female director. It is a historical event to be proud of. The salaries of the women in the film should reflect that event.

And lose this poster. It reminds me of a pregnant image. Yes, I think that is victimizing, especially to the younger girls that will view this film and see this poster. I find it offensive.

Congratulations to Wonder Woman and all it's women that made it a great film.